SCHOOLS 



A long list of books for the use of the school is prescribed, including 

 Isocrates, ./Eschines, Demosthenes, and Homer ; Herodian, Cicero, Czsar, 

 Terence, Justin, Ovid, Prudentius, Virgil, Horace's Epistles and Ars Poetica, 

 and a little Greek Catechism, set forth by authority. The usher was to teach 

 Lilley's Grammar, Nowell's Catechism, and Disticba Catonis. The grammar 

 of King Henry VIII, continued and authorized in the reigns of Edward VI 

 and Queen Elizabeth, is to be used, and no other ; and such other books as 

 * are without taint of atheism, epicurism, popish superstitions, lasciviousness 

 and other like infections.' 



At the time of these ordinances the income seems to have been 20 a 

 year, and it was provided that if ever the income reached 60, the master was 

 to have 4* ar) d the usher 20, and so in proportion if there was a further 

 increase. In i8i8 l the income was stated to be 600. The head master 

 was then the Rev. John Nelson, and the usher the Rev. Thomas Tordiffe, 

 and they divided this income between them in the proportion of two-thirds 

 to one-third for the instruction of 3 free boys, 4 or 5 being the average, the 

 education being confined exclusively to the classics. 



In 1829 Lord Brougham's commission* reported that 



the head master's situation is considered in the light of a mere beneficial sinecure in the gift 

 of Queen's College, Oxford. He resides, however, at Northleach, and the school therefore 

 may be considered as having the benefit of his supervision. The usher is personally 

 employed in the instruction of the few boys who arc sent to the school from the town of 

 Northleach. 



In 1847 Mr. Askew, the master, refused to take any boys till they were 

 able, in the words of the statutes, to ' take instruction.' There were 20 boys 

 in the school taught by a deputy, a decrepit old man paid by the usher. 

 The Rev. C. H. Lowry on being appointed usher in these circumstances 

 soon left for the head mastership of Carlisle Grammar School. In 1855 he 

 was himself made head master at Northleach, and some effort was made at 

 improvement. But in 1866 the Endowed Schools Inquiry Commission* 

 found that all that Mr. Lowry, the head master, did was to open the school 

 with prayers, and occasionally gave scripture lessons. He also took in his 

 own house a * classical department,' consisting of his son and the usher's sons 

 and one other boy, a boarder, who after nine years in the school had just 

 joined the classical department. The usher, who was vicar of Barrington, 

 six miles off, where he lived, attended twice a week and took the upper 

 classes in English history and Latin. Otherwise the school was run by 

 a ' commercial master,' John Worder, an elementary teacher, who issued 

 his own prospectus of the school as a commercial school, making no 

 reference to the fact of its being a grammar school or to its master and usher. 

 He had 58 boys, 43 of them boarders paying about 26 a year, and 15 

 day-boys, 6 foundationers gratis and 9 paying 6 a year. Worder went 

 off to Cheltenham with his boarders in 1867. Other 'commercial' masters 

 followed. 



This scandal was put a stop to by a scheme under the Endowed Schools 

 Act of 1 1 July, 1877, which divested Queen's College of the patronage and 

 put the school under a governing body of 1 2, on which the college was cut 

 down to 2 representatives, the rest being appointed, 2 by the justices of the 



1 Carlisle, op. cit. i, 458. ' Cfcr. Cow. Rep. xxi, 1 1 J. ' Stk. Inj. Rtp. xr, 96. 



437 



